Archive for the ‘World War II’ Category

According to a March 27, 2015 article posted at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website, Ancestry.com is currently suspended from digitizing 49 million WWII Draft cards at the Federal Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. An Ancestry employee, seemingly running behind on their work, was caught attempting to destroy records. Ancestry is under contract to digitize […]

I’ve been a Fold3 subscriber since the website started years ago. If I’m looking for military record images and data, it is the first place I search. Although I’ve been traveling, making this announcement is a bit late on my part, I’d like to pass along that Fold3 is offering free access to their WWII […]

The following is compiled from the last two collection updates from FamilySearch (those for July 19 and July 25, 2014): During the week ending July 25, 2014, FamilySearch has added more than 1.7 million indexed records and images to collections from Canada, Croatia, Peru, Poland, and the United States. Notable collection updates include the 1,160,179 […]

Washington, DC (PRWEB) June 05, 2014 Stars and Stripes first launched its digital archive in 2008 with over 1.0 million newspaper pages spanning 1948 through 1999. Fittingly, the World War II editions will begin to become available on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Originally established in London in 1942 for American military service […]

Fold3 is offering its World War II military records totally free through Memorial Day, Monday, May 31. Some of the records you can view are: Army Enlistment Records Casualty Lists Department of Veterans Affairs – BIRLS Death File Draft Registration Cards Missing Air Crew Reports Navy Muster Rolls Photos

The following excerpt is from an article posted at the May 7, 2014 BBC website. To mark the 69th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day BBC Scotland has created an ONLINE DATABASE of 21,740 of the 57,000 Scots who died during World War Two. Etched into sun-seared stone, the names of hundreds of Scots […]

In the Yesteryear column of the guardian.co.uk is found an interesting column made up of comments about the surname Hitler. Following are just a couple as a teaser. Keep in mind that these are just comments, some lacking in veracity. Was Hitler a common family name before 1945? What did Hitlers change their names to […]

A few days ago I posted a piece about how Hitler’s wife may have had Jewish ancestry. Now we have a follow-up to the story… The following excerpt is from an article posted in the April 13, 2014 edition of dailymail.uk: When Channel 4 paid David Irving $5,000 to obtain what the controversial historian claimed […]

The following teaser is from the April 7, 2014 edition of forward.com: Eva Braun, the wife of Adolf Hitler, may have had Jewish ancestry, according to a new British documentary. “Dead Famous DNA,” which is scheduled to air Wednesday on Britain’s Channel 4, reported that hair samples from a brush believed to have been used […]

The following excerpt is from an article by Chris Elliott, posted in the February 24, 2014 edition of cambridge-news.co.uk. A massive online archive telling the story of the American Air Force in Britain during the Second World War is set to be pioneered in Cambridgeshire. It will be hosted by the Imperial War Museum at […]

Having served in the U.S. Army, I’m always checking to see if any of my former “Battle Buddies” have lost their lives. This has led me to look for the names and records of soldiers lost in other conflicts. The American Battle Monuments website is one of the better sites. Established by Congress in 1923, […]

From the November 1, 2013 posting on the Ancestry.com blog New records are piling up like the leaves on my front lawn. Veterans Day has its roots in WWI, and we added several WWI-era databases last week. Georgia was home to more training camps than any other state during World War I; you’ll find more […]

Google is about to post a walk-through of Arlington National Cemetery. Although some headstones photographed with the walk-through might not be as clear and readable as others, it is said that many will for more legible than those currently posted at the Cemetery website (not bad in itself!), as the photography is being done in […]

The following teaser is from the October 13 edition of the Boston Globe. This is a tragic and fascinating story. CAMBRIDGE — Over the years, Dr. Joan Wheelis has bumped into John F. Kerry a couple of times at a Cambridge tailor shop they both happen to like. The psychiatrist and the then-US senator from […]

The following data was received from FamilySearch: FamilySearch has recently added more than 3.1 million indexed records and images from England, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United States. Notable collection updates include the 2,669,755 indexed records from the New Zealand, Immigration Passenger Lists, 1855–1973, collection, the 272,611 indexed records from the U.S., Arkansas, First Draft […]